Thursday, November 19, 2009

Fans clamored for the first Twilight movie despite its shortcomings (lighting, vampire makeup, etc.), but even those who aren't Twi-hards are in for a much better time with the second film, New Moon, which opens Friday.

At least that's the feeling of the stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, as well as director Chris Weitz. All agree that the sequel, based on the second Twilight book by Stephenie Meyers, improves upon the original. (And check out our exclusive gallery of images from the film's world premiere in Hollywood on Monday, below this story.)

"When I read New Moon, it gave me ideas about how to play the first one," Pattinson said. "It's the one I connected to the most, and the one that humanized Edward for me the most as well. In the first one, he still does remain, from beginning to end, an idealistic character. But in the second one he makes a mistake that's acknowledged by everybody, including himself. Also, he is totally undermined by more powerful creatures, and he's undermined emotionally by people as well. I think that's what humanized it."

New Moon brings back the same characters, but with a new vision from a different director: Chris Weitz, who stepped in for Catherine Hardwicke. Weitz didn't want to do the same thing over again.

Weitz had ideas for different lighting, different visual effects, different camera moves and more. He gave the actors a 40-50-page syllabus full of his new directorial ideas. "What I really didn't want was sequelitis or the idea that we're just cranking out a franchise," Weitz said. "I wanted everyone to know what sort of movie we wanted to make."

Stewart, who plays Bella, said that Weitz's prep in part gave her a better idea of what to expect. "A lot of the effects movies are hard to do, because you don't know what you're reacting to," Stewart recalled. "So he had a full rundown of how he planned on making the movie. He was so sorry that so much of the movie was going to be CGI stuff that we were going to have to react to, but he was always going to make us aware of what we were acting with, that he was never going to leave us high and dry."

As for the romance in the new film, as fans know, it marks the breakup of Edward and Bella. "Just playing a scene where you're breaking up the ideal relationship, I felt a lot of the weight behind that," Pattinson said. "Also, it took away a fear of melodrama as well, because it felt kind of seismic, if that's the right word, even when we were doing it." The torment challenged Stewart, too. "It was really hard to go back and forth, because you don't shoot a movie in sequence, obviously," she said. "I had to do stuff with Jacob where I was alive and happy and out of this depression thing, and then after lunch go back and scream in my bed for six hours. So that was difficult."As for Jacob, it's been well documented how Lautner had to put on the muscles to play a bigger, badder Jacob for New Moon. "Jacob transforms a lot in New Moon, not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well," Lautner said. "So it was a matter of getting to the gym and eating the right food and a lot of it, but also reading and studying the book and my character over and over and over again so I could have his character down as well. He changes in many, many different ways. Basically, my job was to continue what I started in Twilight, which was this extremely happy, friendly, outgoing guy, best friends with Bella. I had to continue that for the first half of the film, but as soon as I transform, I snap, and I become a completely different person. I'm dealing with my issues, and it's really hard for me."

The big new effects in New Moon are the werewolves, and Lautner himself says they delivered. "I was blown away," Lautner said. "When I'm filming, the famous trailer shot where I'm running through the field, and I jump up and try and transform in midair, I'm attached to wires, and I'm running, and I let the wires pull me up in the air and jerk me to a stop, and I just have to freeze there and let them convert my body into a CGI wolf. The whole time I'm like, 'I hope I look cool.' After I saw the final version last week, after I saw the wolves, it was amazing. The fight scene that comes right after that, the fight between Jacob and Paul wolf was so cool. I thought they were extremely powerful and looked very real." "The physical side was really fun," Lautner added. "Some of it was challenging. I'd never ridden a dirt bike before. I rode the dirt bike for a total of about five seconds in the film, but for those five seconds I had to look as cool as possible. So it did require a lot of practice, just for safety-wise, so they'd let me do it. The wirework, like when I run up the side of her house, the wires were there just so if I slipped and fell I didn't face-plant into the ground. That stunt was really complicated. You need to be 'on.' I'm using a little plug in the side of the wall to take off from and jump. Every single weekend I would practice that stunt for three hours a day. It was the last thing we filmed."

If that's not enough, New Moon has a much better soundtrack. "There were these incredible pickings on offer: Thom Yorke, The Killers, Bon Iver, Lykke Li," Weitz said. "I genuinely think it's one of the best soundtrack albums that's ever been done. The reason I will make this outrageous claim is that it's not music that was already completed. It's kind of easy to do that, but to be able to risk asking somebody to do a track and four weeks later or so a song comes back, to have it work as many times as it did was really extraordinary. I think that if any one of those artists had done a track for our soundtrack, I would have been really proud, but to have all of them is absolutely extraordinary."

JOHN PINETTE......ENJOY!!

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The Sun is a powerful force in our Universe. It brings us light, warmth and a promise of a galaxy beyond the stars. Often we associate massive flashes of light with the reflection of our Sun's light bouncing off of another surface.

This is not always the case though, especially if you believe that we are truly not alone in the Universe. When we witness things that we can't readily explain we sometimes turn our heads and shrug our shoulders in a display of apathy.

A display such as this occurred on Friday January 29, 1982 at the Crater Lake National Park just outside of Chemult, Oregon. The snow had been falling steadily for a period of four days. The winds had been whisking about at 40 miles per hour.Then there was one of those unnatural flashes of light. This created an eerie silence as a lanky boy, just nine years old, seemed to appear from out of that flash. If he had walked to this point there would have been a distinct trail in the newly fallen snow.There was no trail and as a matter of fact the only tracks in the snow were the ones that outlined his feet where he was standing.

He began to trudge through the snow wearing what could only be described as dark brown long johns. He seemed dazed yet, at the same time, very clear about the direction that he was travelling. This boy with no identity or name seemed to be on a mission that would take him to places he had never been before.His main goal was to reach Chemult, Oregon and he had no intention of stopping until he accomplished this. As strange as it seems the extreme cold seemed to have little or no effect on him at all.

Why Chemult? What was so special about this town located at an elevation of 4,758 feet above sea level in a frozen winter wilderness in Oregon?

The town of Chemult was first opened to the local traffic in 1926 and here in 1982, with its population of only 241, offered little in the way of comfort for a nine year old boy who was all alone. This journey, although prompted by something deep inside of him, did not provide a feeling of comfort and yet he had hoped that he would at least experience a feeling of accomplishment once he reached the town.

The wind was getting stronger and he noticed a small piece of yellow paper tattered and torn from whipping about in the snow. He only stopped long enough topick up this paper..........it read:

.....With the winter season here there was a lot of fun to have. Travelling miles of open trails on snow mobiles skiing or simply hiking, but there are dangers of doing so. Please remember safety first. Do not travel alone and be sure someone knows where you are and where you are going before travelling our trails, and please read the safety rules and codes of ethics before hiking the trails...

Nightfall was near and he had already walked 38 of the 40 miles needed to reach Chemult. He was just off of Route 97 when he spotted an old barn just about 200 feet NE of his present location. Making his way to the barn he went in and found it to be totally deserted, it was a perfect place to rest for the night.

Morning had arrived and once awake the boy started to look around the barn in the daylight light to see if there was anything that was lying in the barn that he could use to assist him on his trek.

Over in the far corner of the barn he found an old metal locked box that had long been forgotten. It was all rusted out and the key was nowhere to be found. After several failed attempts to open the box the young boy closed his eyes, sat back on his tired limbs and placed the palm of his right hand on top of the box. All of a sudden a dull red glow appeared from his right palm and the box lid flew open. Strangely enough once the red glow disappeared all that remained was a faint thin black outline where the outside of the red mark had appeared on his palm. Inside of the box he found several items all of which were unfamiliar to him and it was obvious that they had been therefor a very long time.

The contents included a tattered passport with the picture missing, a pocket knife, a compass, an antique pocket watch with a broken crystal, a time-worn souvenir porcelain coffee mug with the words; "Atlanta, Georgia, The Peach State, A Perfect Place to Live", on it and a frayed map of the Metro Atlanta Area It was difficult to make out the name on the passport but with a couple of light brushes with his fingers he saw the name Jason Tredmore. This is now who this boy would become.

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From the time I was 6yrs old and my mother took me to the theatre to see “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” in 1958 I have been drawn to and intrigued by all that is unusual. Sci-Fi, Horror, Paranormal, Monsters, Vampires, Werewolves, etc…. As I progressed through life I was taken aback by the shear genius of the work of Ray Harryhausen. He was the master of the moveable monsters like the Cyclops in the movie referenced above. Later my interests latched onto 50’s Sci-Fi black and white movies where I ran into the original “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. Whenever I watched a show or movie or read a book I literally saw myself entrenched in the story. I felt what the characters felt, saw what they saw and experienced what they experienced. It was the attraction to that which put a tiny thought into my mind to write a story. Since this time I have written my first Sci-Fi Book called "Strolok" and it is available for purchase here and I have already started a second book.